Short Fiction · Character

Roger Button

Roger Button is a respectable Baltimore hardware wholesaler whose orderly life is upended by a son born old, bearded, and already speaking in complete sentences.

supporting

Also known as Mr. Roger Button, Mr. Button, Button, the newborn Button, old Roger Button

First appearance: tarquin of cheapside

As a supporting figure in Short Fiction, Roger Button is not background color—the story leans on what they do once the chapter opens.

Benjamin's father, who is initially horrified by his son's appearance.

In the storyThe Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonOpen this moment free

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Roger Button wants nothing more than to be a normal father to a normal heir, but his newborn son arrives looking like a seventy-year-old man and calling him 'father' with grotesque courtesy. He chops the beard with hospital shears, dresses the infant in dotted socks and pink pants, and grimly takes him out in public anyway. As Benjamin ages backward and the two become companions who could pass for brothers, Roger's baffled propriety becomes the story's quiet measure of how little the world knows what to do with the strange.

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See Roger Button in tarquin of cheapside

Character Web

12 connections

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Relationship types

Other

Character groups

Varied fates and transformations
Reverse aging and identity
Social climbers and romantics
Protagonist

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Narrative arc

Story tension across the book.

Setup
Escalation
Breaking point
Aftermath
Closing

Val reaches his emotional and psychological peak in this passage as he confronts the painful gap between his r…

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In the story

Roger Button appears across 8 companion beats. Open any chapter in the free preview to see the notes beside the text.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Benjamin's father, who is initially horrified by his son's appearance.
I
The father, a wealthy Baltimore hardware merchant, who is horrified to discover his newborn son is a seventy-year-old man.
II
Mr. Button nervously buys clothes for his newborn son, struggles with the clerk, and forces his son to wear a fancy dress suit.
III
Persists in treating Benjamin as a normal baby, buying toys and insisting on childish behavior; struggles to maintain the illusion of normality; compromises on long trousers but demands Benjamin dye his hair and avoid spectacles.
IV
Benjamin's father sends him to Connecticut to take examinations for Yale.
V
At fifty, takes Benjamin to social events and discusses business, unaware of his son's romantic distraction.
VI
Benjamin's father; publishes Benjamin's birth certificate in the Baltimore Blaze to counter rumors.
VII
Retires in 1895 after the family fortune doubles; eventually bestows adulation on Benjamin.

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See Roger Button in tarquin of cheapside

See Roger Button in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button